The Outdoor Channel Shuts Down Production In Colorado Over New Gun Laws

The Outdoor Channel will apparently no longer film in Colorado now that the state has enacted new gun control laws.

Two Colorado gunmakers – HiViz Shooting Systems and Magpul Industries — are also moving their operations out of state, and two shooting competitions scheduled for Colorado are going elsewhere.

The Outdoor Channel describes itself as “America’s leader in outdoor TV … that captures the excitement of hunting, fishing, shooting sports, off-road motorsports, adventure and other outdoor lifestyles.”

In a letter to a state senator before the new Colorado gun bills were voted into law, Outdoor Channel Executive Producer Michael Bane noted that his network has at least four shows under production that focus on guns, hunting, shooting, and the outdoors, including the channel’s most popular show Gun Stories (hosted by Joe Mantegna of Criminal Minds).

Most of the filming for these shows has taken place in Colorado because the state has earned the reputation as sportsman’s and woman’s paradise.

That all appears to be changing, however. In his letter, Bane pledged to pull all of the TV production activity out of Colorado and move to a more gun-friendly state if/when the restrictive laws took effect.

Bane’s letter included the following sentiments:

” … Obviously, part of this is due to our own commitment to the right to keep and bear arms, but it also reflects 3 lawyers’ opinions that these laws are so poorly drafted and so designed to trap otherwise legal citizens into a crime (one of our attorneys referred to them as ‘flypaper laws’) that it is simply too dangerous for us to film here …

“The message we will take to our viewers and listeners is that these proposed laws are so dangerous to hunters and any other person, be she a fisherman or a skier who brings a handgun into the state for self-defense, that we cannot recommend hunting, fishing or visiting Colorado. We reach millions of people, and, quite frankly, we have a credibility that Colorado government officials can no longer match.”

Bane acknowledged that Colorado stands to lose “only” lose about $1 million when the Outdoor Channel cameras close down, but that’s only part of the economic impact. “We estimate that as many as one quarter to one third of out of state hunters will desert Colorado in the next 18 24 months, which will quite frankly be a disaster for the hunting industry in Colorado …”

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting rampage at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, the Discovery Channel canceled Ted Nugent’s Gun Country and American Guns.

Have you ever watched the Outdoor Channel? Do you think that Colorado’s economy will take a significant hit if or when hunters spend their money elsewhere and production companies head to other states to film TV shows about the outdoors?

[Top image credit: Shutterstock]